Local Government Employers Show Contempt For Staff Over Pay Negotiations

14 Feb 2014

The national employers for local government had arranged to meet GMB and the other trade unions today, 14 February, to make an offer for the 2014 pay rise. However they have decided to cancel that meeting for reasons that show utter contempt and disrespect for staff.

I am led to believe that the employers have a 1% pay rise available but, paltry as that is, they are not going to offer it to everyone. Instead, they want to wait and see how much they will have to pay to people on the very lowest pay points when the new national minimum wage is announced for this year - and deduct that from the 1% pot! So apart from the very lowest paid, everyone else will get less than 1%. To put it another way, everyone else will have to pay for the national minimum wage rise.

That is absolutely outrageous.

It’s bad enough that staff working for local authorities might be at minimum wage rates and they certainly deserve a decent rise. But at everyone else’s cost? There’s only a measly 1% in the pot to start with and then the employers have got the cheek to take some out to pay the statutory minimum legal wage. Surely everyone needs a fair pay rise!